PLANT BREE;dING. l6t 



Some of the numerous examples of bud variations in apples, 

 pears and other fruits will suggest themselves. In Virginia, 

 Albemarle Pippin is a familiar example of bud variation from 

 the Yellow Newtown. In Canada the Red Gravenstein appears. 

 In the Northwestern states, King is hardly recognized because 

 of its elongated form. The propagator has only to form a clear 

 idea of the type of Baldwin, Newtown, King, or other fruit 

 which he wishes to attain, then to select from each generation 

 buds from branches which appear most nearly approximating 

 his ideal. If then the differences in the buds of a tree or other 

 fruit plant can be perpetuated by asexual means, as by cuttings, 

 grafting, etc., it is evident that this method can be depended 

 upon for the systematic improvement of existing varieties ; and 

 with most of the commonly cultivated fruits such improvement 

 is vastly more important than a wholesale production of new 

 forms. 



The improvement of horticultural varieties does not neces- 

 sarily follow the lines of improvement in the wild state. Nature 

 builds up her types gradually by the selection, in each genera- 

 tion, of individuals best suited to their environment; in other 

 words by a " survival of the fittest," or, as Bailey puts it, a 

 " survival of the unlike." Man, on the other hand, selects the 

 most coveted, and in order to attain his end supplies the environ- 

 ment best suited to the individual, and with the natural result. 



While recognizing and emphasizing the importance of the 

 production of seedlings from judicious crossing, it is believed 

 by the writer that the attention to conditions of environment is 

 infinitely more important than the multiplication of forms, in 

 which the element of chance plays so large a part, and that, 

 unfortunately, in many cases, the principles of selection and 

 asexual propagation have in the past been lost sight of. 



The slight differences which any careful observer will detect 

 in the common fruits form sufficient basis for the most favorable 

 of systematic breeding. A few examples of fruit originating 

 in this way will suffice. The origin of the Nectarine as a bud 

 variation of the peach is familiar. Even at the present day 

 such variations are not uncommon. Thomas Andrew Knight 

 records the case of a Yellow Magnum Bonum plum producing 

 a branch which bore Red Magnum Bonum.* Powell cites a 



* Cf. Darwin, Animals and Plants Under Domestication. 

 12 



